


I Just Don't Want to Die Anymore

by infernalandmortal



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-29 12:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19019734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infernalandmortal/pseuds/infernalandmortal
Summary: Murphy tells Emori about a choice. She grapples with it in her own way.SPOILERS FOR SEASON 6. READ WITH THAT KNOWLEDGE.Title from Richard Siken because of course it is.





	I Just Don't Want to Die Anymore

“You are not going to die,” Emori says slowly. “And I am.”

John nods once. Slow. Slower than her words. He doesn’t say anything. He runs his tongue over his lips, nervous, and looks up at her. She’s standing at the workbench in the shop Raven co-opted as theirs. He’s sit-leaning on a stack of wood, right leg bouncing nervously, hands clenched into fists.

She wants to stand here, over him, and memorize the way the sun filters through his eyelashes. How his eyes glow blue in the light, clearer than the cleanest water. How red his cheeks are from the summer sun.

He has eternity now to learn how to get a tan, she thinks, and her body involuntarily trembles with a repressed laugh.

“Something funny?” John asks, voice strung tight like a tripwire. Nothing is funny about this, she thinks, and yet she’s laughing, shoulders shaking at the absurdity of it all.

She ducks her head, hair falling around her face, and studies her hands braced on the dirty table while she checks her emotions.

“I’m going to die before you,” she says. Another laugh, this one understandable. “I always thought-”

“‘If you die, I’ve been dead for weeks’?” John asks, smirking. “Yeah. Raven never forgets to remind me.”

Silence again. They look at each other. Her heart aches for him, suddenly. He doesn’t know the pain he’s asking for. To lose someone to a sudden death is one thing, but to old age and the passage of time?

There was an old man she knew when she was a child. He lived at the edge of the woods, near where the grass and trees gave way to sand and sky. He didn’t care about her hand, didn’t mind the irreverent way she spoke and the clumsiness of her left-handed sword hold. He told her stories and gave Otan enough dried meat to last them for days. He never told them his name and never asked for theirs. It was safer that way, he said.

He never liked Baylis, either. He thought Otan’s blind trust of him was going to get them both hurt - that a mercenary attitude only ended in danger. He told her once, “Men only know how to be unkind when choosing between survival and goodness. Survive, but not at the cost of your soul.”

He died in his sleep a few days after that. Emori felt a keen loss then. It felt unfair in an unreasonable way. Death by nature’s timing is more reliable than other means, after all. But she still felt abandoned, an unwilling participant in life’s circle.

“You’ll watch yourself lose me,” she whispers, voice shaking. Empathy is still a shock to her system even after years of learning from Bellamy’s example. “I’ll get old a-and die. You won’t-”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m… a coward, I guess.”

She looks up, sharp. “What?”

“I don’t want to die,” he says quickly. “The things I saw when I- Emori. I can’t-”

“John.” She can’t argue with what he saw, mostly because she doesn’t know and doesn’t enjoy fighting losing battles, but also because she thinks she understands. Walking into a strange and violent fate is dangerous, no matter how much you know ahead of time. “It’s okay.”

She reaches for him. The years stretch out between their hands, long and unyielding. She wonders if he’ll ever age, if his mind will change and wither over the centuries of body after body, life after life.

She supposes, if nothing else, it will be a relief to never have to see him in any other skin other than this.

He takes her hand and pulls her close, burying his face in her neck. “I love you,” he whispers. “I do. I swear I do.”

_ But I love myself more _ hangs unspoken between them. She knows. She doesn’t care. Or maybe she does. Maybe that’s the pain radiating inside her with all these other knotted-up feelings that ache somewhere near her solar plexus.

“Survive,” she tells him, a feeble way to pass on a generational lesson she forgot until it was too late. “Survive, but not at the cost of your soul.”

He laughs sardonically against her skin. “I think my soul is already all paid out.”

She draws back and rests her left hand over his heart. “I hope time is good to you.”

“We have time now.” He takes her hand, presses a kiss to its palm. “I have a whole lifetime with you.”

_ And hundreds where you won’t even remember me,  _ she thinks. But, as Raven bustles in with an armful of tech and an earful of complaints and as John reaches over to whack her on the arm for some insult she paid him earlier, she keeps her silence.

**Author's Note:**

> .....sorrY


End file.
